Religion and technique constitute two components of each culture. They occupy various positions in it and play various roles. The development of particular sciences, especially the natural sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, had brought about revolutionary changes in the domain of technique, including techniques of communication and intervention in the human organism. As a result of the strict relationship between science and technique and the achievements of science, the scientific-technical mentality was developed. Some cultural processes related to it (...) (epistemological monism, pragmatism, consumerism) lead to the re-evaluation of the very foundations of culture: in the sphere of knowledge (truth), good (morality), and art (beauty). The narrowing of the concept of science, the domination of technique (technocracy) will contribute to inappropriate relations between religion and culture. Thereby they are threats to the humankind of man and the appropriate function of culture. (shrink)

What duties do people have in the face of noncompliance of others with their duties? The paper defends the duty to take up the slack when slack taking is necessary to assist those in dire need. This duty has been criticized by J. L. Cohen, Liam Murphy and, more recently, David Miller. The duty is defended against arguments that appeal to the structure of the duty to aid, fair shares, responsibility, counterintuitiveness, and perverse consequences. The paper considers the implications of (...) the duty for the case of aiding refugees. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 323 Person and Religion: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. By ZOFIA J. ZDYBICKA, U.C.J.A. Translated by Theresa Sandok. New York: Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. xix+ 397 (cloth). Zdybicka's volume is the third in Peter Lang's series, "Catholic Thought from Lublin." A convenient way to display the contents of Person and Religion is to elaborate the meaning of " philosophy of religion " and its (...) comprising terms. Philosophy of religion designates the attempt to arrive at an ultimate explanation of the empirically given and existentially apprehended fact of religion (p. 96). In other words, why does religion exist at all and what are its subjective and objective grounds? This endeavor Zdybicka understands to be a recent one. Despite a wealth of reflection on religion over the centuries (See her historical survey, pp. 1-49), only since the 19th century have there been separate disciplines with the phenomenon of religion as their object. Zdybicka also emphasizes that not any kind of philosophy is equal to the task of carrying out the above mentioned attempt. Since the ultimate explanation of religion as truth or fantasy will entail determining whether God exists, only philosophies capable of grasping the real can serve the interests of philosophy of religion. Forms of Kantianism and phenomenology are not equal to the task (p. 97). Only a realistic philosophy connected with a theory of being stands a chance of offering an ultimate explanation of religion. In particular, the metaphysics borne in mind here is that of Krapiec. Peter Lang has recently published an English translation of it under the title, Metaphysics: An Outline of the History of Being (see my review in the January issue of The Thomist.) This work is indispensable background reading for Part III of Zdybicka's volume. Though this metaphysics is existential Thomist, its employment in a philosophy of religion will not resolve the question of which religion is true, though some religions will be ruled out as unsuitable for the human being (p. 97). What is understood as "religion"? In its basic meaning the religious fact is the reference or orientation of the human being toward a transcendent reality (p. 109). Considered more closely, the religious fact is actually multiphasic. First, there is the experience of our own ontic insufficiency and the consciousness of our transcendence and search for a value capable of preserving us in being and giving us complete existential meaning. Second, there is the religious experience in its strict sense. This second phase is itself divided into three phases. First is some kind of revelation from the religious object. Zdybicka stresses that this revelation occurs through signs to which we respond in faith; there is no direct cognitive contact with the religious object. 324 BOOK REVIEWS Second, there is the active response of the one struck by this revelation. The response consists in pursuing union with the deity. This second phase involves purification. Finally, there is the realization of the bond with the sacrum. What is achieved in the human person is holiness. The book concludes (pp. 315-22) with an extended discussion of this value. In sum, the phases of the religious experience properly speaking are: encounter, dialogue, and union. Zdybicka regards religious cults and rites as simply the externalization of religious acts (p. 129). They complete the description of the religious fact. Zdybicka also takes some time to distinguish religious experience from cognitive, moral, and aesthetic experience. Finally, pp. 157-59 contain an interesting inductive argument that the object of religious experience has always been understood as personal. In Part III Zdybicka performs a philosophical assessment of the religious fact. Specifically, the assessment is of the above mentioned introductory phase. Also as mentioned, Zdybicka takes advantage of Krapiec's Gilsonian existential Thomism which has denominated "classical philosophy." This philosophy's analysis of the human person and of reality critically validates both the subjective and objective grounds for the fact of religion properly speaking. The philosophically established subjective grounds include the contingent ontic status of the human person as this is evinced in the presence of the essence/existence composition. They also include an analysis of the person's ability to know and... (shrink)

Article Zofia A. Brzozowska / Mirosław J. Leszka / Kirił Marinow/ Teresa Wolińska (eds.). Widmo Mahometa, cień Samuela. Cesarstwo bizantyńskie w relacji zprzedstawicielami innych religii i kultur (VII–XV wiek) was published on February 1, 2021 in the journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift (volume 114, issue 1).

The paper is devoted to the research by H. Petrovsky “Desturbance of the Sign. Culture against Transcendence.” The article attempts a reconstruction of some important conceptual topoi of the book. The ideas of the book are presented through the material of one of the chapters — the photo archive of Zofia Rydet. The second part offers a conceptual variation of a different type, due to J.-M. Vappereau, which is related to the range of issues raised in the book.

Many writers have paid tribute to its power: Shakespeare urged his audiences to use it to create a setting; Hobbes asserted that "imagination and memory are but one thing; " for Wordsworth it was "the mightiest leveler known to moral world; " and to Baudelaire it represented "the queen of truth. " Imagination as artistic, poetic, and cultural predicate remains one of the most influential ideas in the history of Western thought. It has been simultaneously feared as a dangerous, uncontrollable (...) force, and revered as the supreme visionary power. The questions of its origins, nature, function, and effects have absorbed writers, theologians, and philosophers alike. J. M. Cocking's Imagination shows how these questions have recurred, through the ages and in various cultures. Exploring this theme, from antiquity to the Renaissance, it opens with a discussion of the treatment of imagination in the writings of Aristotle and Plato. Tracing its development in the Middle Ages, Cocking pays particular attention to the parallel tradition in Islamic thought of the period. The book pursues the concept through the theories of Dante and the neo-Platonists, concluding with the High Renaissance. (shrink)

(2002). Philosophy of Science 72 (January), 198-208.

In his award-winning book _The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Development_, J. N. Mohanty charted Husserl's philosophical development from the young man's earliest studies—informed by his work as a mathematician—to the publication of his _Ideas_ in 1913. In this welcome new volume, the author takes up the final decades of Husserl's life, addressing the work of his Freiburg period, from 1916 until his death in 1938. As in his earlier work, Mohanty here offers close readings of Husserl's main texts (...) accompanied by accurate summaries, informative commentaries, and original analyses. This book, along with its companion volume, completes the most up-to-date, well-informed, and comprehensive account ever written on Husserl's phenomenological philosophy and its development. (shrink)

For half a century, J. I. Packer's classic has helped Christians everywhere discover the wonder, glory, and joy of knowing God. This fiftieth anniversary edition of a thought-provoking work seeks to renew and enrich our understanding of God, bringing together knowing about God and knowing God through a close relationship with Jesus Christ.

After measuring consumers' sentiments toward business ethical practices in mostly Christian countries, the Business Ethics Index was expanded to two Muslim countries — Turkey and Egypt. The overall BEI for both countries was on the negative range, with Egypt exhibiting the widest gap between personal ethical perceptions and vicarious ones. No difference between genders was observed.